Signs

(excerpted/edited from Between the Lines: Christianity for Misfit Christians)

And the sign said long haired freaky people need not apply...

And the sign said anybody caught trespassing would be shot on sight...

And the sign said everybody welcome, come in, kneel down and pray...

– Signs, Five Man Electrical Band, 1970

"…Messiah also is the head of the assembly, being himself the savior of the body."  – Ephesians 5:23b 

The word translated “church” 77 times in the Bible is the Greek word ekklesia (ek-lay-SEE-ah), which is ek (out) compounded with kaleo (call).  (Remember kaleo; he’ll be back later.)  Agora and paneguris as well as heorte, koinon, thiasos, sunagoge and sunago all mean groups of people.  What’s so special about ekklesia? 

Ekklesia meant a gathering of people.  When the people found their government officials to be crooken or misguided or just misrepresentative, they would literally meet outside the city boundaries to collectively talk things over.  If enough people came out and decided that a change of management was needed, they would return and effect that change.[i]  An ekklesia was what we might call a town hall meeting, but with a lot more bite than our usual Q&A sessions with elected leaders.

We who are Christians are called out from every thing to be part of some thing else.  Really, we are called to be part of some One else, a relationship. We are “called out” from where we are, “called together” to discover and strengthen our new relationships with God and each other, and “called back” (still together) to the world we came from.  “Called” from Ordinary lives to become an Extra-ordinary Body[ii] of Christ.

Who is “we?”  “We” are the ones who show up on a given moment for worship, for lunch, for coffee and bagels, for a sales meeting.  “We” are the subset in any given group, sacred or secular, who are his, lighted by him.  And “our” sign doesn’t really “belong” to us, but it really does say, “everybody welcome, come in, kneel down, and pray...” regardless of hair, trespass or membership.

 

 Signs (cover by Tesla)

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[i] See A Greek-English Lexicon, by R. Scott, and H.G. Liddell, p. 206; A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, by J. H. Thayer, , p. 196]; Synonyms of the New Testament, by R.C. Trench, 7th ed., pp. 1-2; and A Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, by Oskar Seyffert, , pp. 202-203.  http://www.hisholychurch.net/ekklesia.html

[ii] Romans 12:5, 1 Corinthians 12 (all).